Richard Hell

Richard Hell (born Richard Lester Meyers) is an American singer, songwriter, bass guitarist, and writer who influenced punk style and sound in the 1970s and 80s. Hell moved to New York from Kentucky before finishing high school to become a poet, publishing in periodicals as well as his own poetry book Wanna Go Out? (Dot Books, 1973) under the pseudonym Theresa Stern. Hell was a founding member of Neon Boys in 1972, renamed Television in 1973. He then left and joined the Heartbreakers in 1975. Shortly after, in 1976, Hell founded Richard Hell and the Voidoids, whose debut album Blank Generation (1977) solidified Hell as a punk-rock icon. Hell published his his first novel, Go Now (Scribner), in 1996. Hell has read his literature at The Kitchen twice since 1991, and The Kitchen screened footage of his work with The Heartbreakers in 2017. For more information, visit http://richardhell.com/.